Of Dusk and Dawn
by Mistress of the Keyblade
Summary: A oneshot about Dawn trying to cope with reality. Spoilers up through season 5. Please read and review!


**I don't own them, Joss does.**

**Mmmm... Set between seasons 5 and 6, so spoilers up to there.**

**Please read and pretty please review. I welcome all feedback, so gimme!

* * *

**

* * *

It had been three weeks since Buffy died. Three weeks since the funeral, the private funeral in the woods. It was important that nobody knew Buffy was dead. But their friend deserved a funeral.

It had been three weeks since Dawn had smiled. She hadn't laughed either, or spoken more than a couple of words at a time.

No, she hadn't smiled, and she hadn't cried. She hadn't wanted to be near anybody, but she hadn't needed to be alone either. And her friends were getting worried.

* * *

Dawn got out of Xander's car and walked up the steps to the school. Xander had said goodbye and wished her luck on all her tests and waved out the window, but there was no response. She just walked away, staring straight ahead. Xander sighed and drove away, towards Buffy's house. Halfway there, he changed his mind. The tires squealed as he spun the car around suddenly, and drove off in the other direction. Dawn needed help, and he knew who could help her.

* * *

_I'm walking through the hallway. Someone bumps into me, but I continue walking, staring straight ahead. I always stare straight ahead, 'cause what's the point of looking if you can't see?_

_Sometimes I think I'm crazy. It's funny, 'cause I used to be so afraid of going crazy, afraid I would wake up some day and bam! I'd be crazy. I'm not afraid of being crazy anymore. I've realized there's no point in trying to separate fantasy from reality, because there is no reality. Nothing's real, so there's nothing to see. You can't see if nothing's there, right?_

_So I can't see._

_And sometimes I think I'm somewhere inside me, looking out at the world, and sometimes I'm on the outside, watching myself stumble through my life._

_And sometimes I can't tell can't tell if I'm trapped on the inside looking out or if I'm locked outside looking in in in through those eyes my eyes the ones that can't see can't see because there's nothing there nothing at all and if there's nothing there and nothing's real than I can't see because there's nothing to see and if there's nothing than I'm nothing and if I'm nothing then I cannot be._

_So therefore I am not._

_And if I'm nothing then it doesn't matter what I do. And it doesn't matter if someone bumps me in the hall, and if I drop my books it doesn't matter if I pick them back up. Because they don't exist and I don't exist and the hallway doesn't exist and nothing exists so nothing matters. _

_So it doesn't matter if I stay._

_And it doesn't matter if I die._

* * *

Spike lay on the stone slab of his crypt, staring at the ceiling. Since Buffy died, he had hardly slept a wink. Fortunately, vampires didn't need as much sleep as humans did.

He had just finished tracing the cracks in the ceiling with his eyes for the millionth, no, billionth time, when the door of the crypt crashed open.

"Gaaah!" the startled vampire yelled, rolling off the slab and out of the sunlight. He didn't need his eyes to know who it was; the familiar scent of Xander registered at once in his mind.

Without moving from the shadow of the stone table, Spike said "Shut the bleedin' door, Harris! You're lettin' in the sunlight!"

The door did not close. Instead, Spike could see Xander's shadow moving on the wall as the human approached. Unable to stand without being burned, Spike had no choice but to wait for the boy. He was not surprised when Xander stopped next to him, waving a cross in his face.

Spike growled. "Get that out of my face!" Xander just inched closer. "Harris," Spike said warningly, "if you don't get that out of my face and close the bloody door, I will strangle you where you stand, chip and sunlight be damned!"

Xander must have realized that Spike was serious, or at least that he wouldn't listen until the door was safely closed. Keeping the cross between him and Spike, although it was unnecessary, Xander backed toward the door and closed it.

"That's better. Now what the bloody hell are you doing in my crypt in the middle of the day?" Spike growled at Xander, although the human boy stood a good two inches above the blond vampire.

Xander moved until his face was inches from the vampire's, the cross dangling from his hand, forgotten. "Buffy never loved you," he said, matter-of-factly. Spike narrowed his eyes.

"What are you on about?" he asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.

"Buffy never loved you. So stop sulking and get over it. I need you to talk to Dawn; she won't talk to any of us, and you were closest to her. So stop moping around about Buffy and get out there."

Xander had hardly finished speaking when Spike's fist smashed into his nose. Both men staggered backward, doubled over in pain. "Gaah!" shouted Spike, clutching his head. "Gyangh!" yelled Xander, his hands flying to his face. Blood was running down his chin from his clearly broken nose.

Before he could retaliate, Spike had him pinned to the wall with one hand. "Now listen up Harris, because I'm not going to say this again. Don't you ever, _ever_ talk to me about Buffy again. You're so pigheaded that you think that just because you can't have her, no one can. Well here's a thought: you're not in charge of Buffy's life. You're the one she never loved, so why don't _you_ get over it?"

Spike released his hold on Xander. "Now get the hell out of my bloody crypt. GO!" Xander scrambled to his feet and wrenched open the door, dashing out into the sunlight with his hand still cupping his injured nose.

Spike slammed the door shut with a smile. His smile faded, however, when he remembered what Xander had said. Dawn was in trouble, and he had to go talk to her. That was easy enough; he'd swing by Buffy's place after dark and see what he could do.

Spike lay back down on the stone table in the middle of the crypt and started counting spider webs on the ceiling. _If I were Dru, I'd be naming them_ he thought absently.

* * *

_I'm not scared of dying. There are more dead people than living people in the world. George Washington is dead. So is Abraham Lincoln. So why are people afraid of dying?_

_Buffy is dead._

_People are afraid of dying because they are afraid of Nothingness. They are afraid of Not Existing. They don't see that Nothingness is all there is. Nobody exists. The only difference is, when you're dead you don't notice. So you don't care. _

_Buffy doesn't exist._

_She can't exist, because she is dead. When you're dead you don't exist. You just stop, and that's what everybody's afraid of. My sister is dead so she doesn't exist so I don't have a sister._

_So I don't exist._

_But I can't exist anyway because nothing exists because everything is nothing. If everything is nothing and nothing exists and I don't exist then I'm not afraid of dying because I'm already dead. If dying is not existing and I don't exist, then I must be dead right?_

_And I'm tired of knowing I don't exist._

* * *

Dawn hadn't come home that evening. Spike stood outside Buffy's house and watched through the window as the Scoobies dashed around, calling Dawn's friends and yelling at each other. He smiled to himself; they wouldn't find her like that.

Spike turned and walked away. He alone knew where to find the missing teenager, because he knew where she would have gone. He had been there many times himself since Buffy had died.

The vampire entered the woods, and went straight to the clearing that held Buffy's grave. Sure enough, standing in front of the plain, grey tombstone was Buffy's sister, not crying and not smiling, just staring at it in stony silence.

"Hey there, Nibblet," Spike said with false cheeriness. Dawn didn't say anything. "Your mates are all in a tizzy over you," he tried again.

"I don't exist. I am nobody," Dawn said, monotone. Her eyes did not move from the grave.

Spike was startled by this response. He stepped closer to her. "'Course you are! You're somebody special," he said. Without giving her time to respond, Spike pulled her to him in a hug and kissed her to prove that she was, in fact, somebody special.

And she was.

* * *

**There you go!! Please review!!! PLEASE! Oh, and there's another ending that's less shippy, in which Dawn dies. If you want that one, maybe I'll post it as another chapter. Remember, reviews good.**


End file.
